CostaVictoria - Northern Europe

This ship was nice enough, although not nearly as lavish as some we have cruised on. We had an inside room ( a first for us), and it was comfortable with a workable bathroom.

The ports of call were interesting, especially Egypt. We had 3 couples traveling together and we didn't want to do the "herd thing", so we hired taxis and found a great adventure everywhere we went. Salvador in Naples was a romantic. Guiseppi, Abdul, Dionisis, to name a few! We rode through the "old town" section of Alexandria with Abdul, the godfather of taxi drivers in Alex and Cairo!

The ship paper reported that Euro and Dollars could be used in Egypt, but we found they really couldn't. Need to exchange to Egyptian money. Other places took the other fine. I was surprised that all the taxi drivers spoke enough English to give us some good information and to converse.

We were all extremely disappointed in the quality and variety of food on this cruise. You know how you usually look More
forward to dinner in the evenings?...well, we didn't. The service was good, but the food was bland, even desserts were not especially creative or flavorful. The shopping was not very good on this ship and the over the counter medicine selection was very limited. You have to go to the infirmary to get dramamine,etc. One of our group members was very ill one day with a kidney stone and spent the day in the infirmary where she received wonderful attention.

This is the first ship I've been on where people began crowding against the door and hour early to see an after dinner show. Many guests on board were rude and paid no attention to lines and pushed ahead.. or elbowed out of elevators. Guess my Southern upbringing just does not understand that! Shows were mildly entertaining, the young variety dancers/singers did a good job, but the rest was rather blah. If you are into big "groupie" events, that seems like the hit on this ship.

At the end of the cruise we had an overnight in "Milan", which turned out to be a small town outside of Milan. By the time we arrived at our hotel in Cardano and hauled all our luggage up a couple of flights of entrance stairs, (hotel was cool by the way), it was too late and too complicated to get into Milan. I would have liked to have done some good shopping there. It was disappointing to be stuck there for the evening without even a good place to eat. We did have a good time overall, but mainly because we were with good friends and visited interesting ports. I would not choose to sail with Costa again. I guess we have been spoiled on other ships! Less